What is 450 in Yorùbá? You dey squeeze face? Okay, what of 52? One million? If you pose that kain question to many Yorùbás, the answer you get is a head-scratching smile, a dazed look with rolling eyes or a funny 'Saka don port' lip twitch...lol Some will make attempts and try in vain to remember what their Yorùbá class teacher taught them back in the primary school. Well, the numbering is actually very easy and today, we will be taking a look at it together. I hope you have fun with it, you may try out some numbers on your own to see if you are correct.

Numbering more than 40 million, the Yorùbá people are found mainly in southwestern Nigeria. They are also found in Benin Republic, Togo, Ghana, Ivory Coast (Cote d'Ivoire) and all over the globe. Yorùbás have a highly-developed language, the Yorùbá language which has been classified under the Niger-Congo family of languages, making it closely related to Itsekiri and Igala (other languages in the family are Igbo, Jukun, Swahili, Wolof and Efik). As it is with other civilizations across the globe, theYorùbás developed a system of naming numerals, said to be based on counting cowries, fingers and toes. The system is quite easy and straightforward.

According to Olu Lounge, the Yorubas have an elaborate vigesimal (base-20) numeral system which makes use of addition, subtraction and multiplication. Other languages using the vigesimal (with 20 as the block unit) numeral system include Dzongkha (national language in Bhutan), Ainu (Japan), French, Mayas, Aztecs, Danish, Welsh, Scottish Gaelic, Georgian and has also found historical use in England where the old British currency system involved 20 shillings and 240 pence or usage in literature e.g three scores and seven.

As outlined in the book, The History of the Yorubas (From the Earliest Times to the Beginning of the British Protectorate) by Reverend Samuel Johnson (1897), the numerals are Cardinal and Ordinal or Serial and based on the system, we can have three groupings: Simple Enumeration, Quantitative (or Numeral Adjectives) and Numismatics (for money and currencies). Now, let's take a stroll through the simple enumeration but before then, please note:

'Di' means 'less than' or 'subtracted from'. For example, if ogota is 60, 55, will be 'five (arun) subtracted from 60'. Thus, 55 will be 'arunDIlogota.' On the other hand, 'le' means 'more than' or 'added to'. For instance, 54 will be 50 (adọta) + (le) merin (four) using the quantitative or numeral adjectives or in simple enumeration (Ẹrinleladọta). 'Lona or ona' is used for multiplication. Summary: ‘ó lé’ for addition,‘ó dín’for subtraction and ‘onà’ for multiplication.

To use the quantitative or numeral adjectives, all you need to do is to add 'm' to the number. For example, arun (five) will become 'marun' while okanla (11) becomes 'mokanla'. Some special numbers like 1, 20, 30, 40, 50, 60, 70, 80, 90, 100, 200, 300, 400, 500, 600, 700, 800, 900, 1,000, 2,000, 3,000 etc in that order are exceptions as they remain unchanged without the 'm'. And 'Lá' e.g in mejila is a contraction of 'lé mẹ̀wá' meaning 'and ten'.

OUTLINE:1-100200-9001,000-20,000FOR HIGHER NUMBERS: 20,000 and above200,000- 10 MILLION100 MILLION TO ONE TRILLIONORDINALS (Ordinal Numbers)ADVERBS OF NUMBERADVERBS OF TIMEREFERENCES

KINDLY FOLLOW THE LINK ABOVE FOR THE REST (200-900, 1,000-20,000, 20,000 and above, 200,000- 10 MILLION, 100 MILLION TO ONE TRILLION, ORDINALS (Ordinal Numbers), ADVERBS OF NUMBER and ADVERBS OF TIME).